Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1038/s41597-025-04846-8
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) Quantitative and qualitative data on historical vertebrate distributions in Bavaria 1845
Author Rehbein, M.; Escobari, B.; Fischer, S.; Güntsch, A.; Haas, B.; Matheisen, G.; Perschl, T.; Wieshuber, A.; Engel, T. ORCID logo
Source Titel Scientific Data
Year 2025
Department iDiv; BioP
Volume 12
Page From art. 525
Language englisch
Topic T5 Future Landscapes
Data and Software links https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13899541
Abstract Archival collections contain an underutilized wealth of biodiversity data, encapsulated in government files and other historical documents. In 1845, the Bavarian government conducted a comprehensive national survey on the occurrence of 44 selected vertebrate species across the country. The detailed expert responses from 119 forestry offices, totalling 520 handwritten pages, have been preserved in the Bavarian State Archives. In this study, we digitized, annotated, geographically referenced, and published these historical records, making them widely available as data for research and conservation planning. Our dataset, openly accessible through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Zenodo, contains 5,467 species occurrence records from 1845. Besides the binary presence/absence data, we have also published the original textual survey responses, which contain rich qualitative information, such as species abundances, population trends, habitats, forest management practices, and human-nature relationships. This information can be further processed and interpreted to address a range of questions in historical and contemporary ecology.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=30675
Rehbein, M., Escobari, B., Fischer, S., Güntsch, A., Haas, B., Matheisen, G., Perschl, T., Wieshuber, A., Engel, T. (2025):
Quantitative and qualitative data on historical vertebrate distributions in Bavaria 1845
Sci. Data 12 , art. 525 10.1038/s41597-025-04846-8